Jim Goodwin gives details of Willie Collum talks as VAR official wrongly denies Dundee United a goal v Hibs

Jim Goodwin has revealed details of Dundee United’s discussions with Willie Collum over the Sam Darby ‘goal’ that was disallowed in their match against Hibs.

Matthew MacDermid was on VAR duty, after failing to find an offside he disallowed the ‘goal’ for handball with play restarting almost six minutes later.

Television evidence has yet to provide evidence of Darby using his hand, if it had stood United would have been 2-1 up in the 65th minute of the match.

Ironically Hibs scored twice in added time to win the match and draw level with United in fourth place, one point behind third placed Aberdeen.

Third place in the SPFL at the end of this season is likely to provide a place in the Europa League Play Off round, a defeat in that will provide a place in the Conference League and around £5m from UEFA.

The Hibs match took place on Wednesday night, on Thursday Collum was in discussions with United. Speaking to the media on Friday, the BBC reports Goodwin saying:

I just said to Willie that we all had a meeting at Hampden at the beginning of the season and the IFAB rules were all made aware to us and the biggest rule probably is that ‘clear and obvious’ one.

The VAR can only intervene with an on-field decision if they have got significant footage that shows there was a clear and obvious error and I think from the audio – and from the video angles that we have seen – there is no suggestion of a hand ball within the Sam Dalby goal’.

So that is the big gripe for us. We believe the goal should have stood. Willie will no doubt speak about it himself, maybe in the early part of next week, and give his own feelings on it.

To disallow a goal the way it was disallowed on Wednesday night with no real conclusive evidence is not within the rules – it is as simple as that.

In contrast there has been no word of Collum discussing with Celtic Alan Muir’s decision to disallow a ‘goal’ from Daizen Maeda in the 2-1 defeat against Hibs.

There is no hiding place for MacDermid who will referee tonight’s match between St Mirren v Celtic, Andrew Dallas will be on VAR duty then do a second shift tomorrow for the Aberdeen v Dundee United match.

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